Federation CVC (Disaster Response/Heavy Assault Ship)
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: New Product Development: New: Module 3030 never builts: Federation CVC (Disaster Response/Heavy Assault Ship)
By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Saturday, November 14, 2009 - 03:06 pm: Edit

From a post in another thread, an idea was spun off. Essentially, given that Heavy Cruiser hulls were in high demand, special purpose missions that the fleet might find need for would be difficult to convert them for...unless multiple use could be made of the hull once converted (with relatively minor changes).

So here is an idea on this that fits the role of the modern Wasp-class amphibious assault ships. In time of war, they can easily be used for the planned role of heavy assault warships, or, if needed, something like an Interdiction-type carrier (a full fighter squadron of fighters as large as F-15s, given this design is based on the CVS/CVB hull).

In peace time, the presence of a flag bridge, large amount of lab space, generous shuttle complement (with a fly-through bay), and significant crew accommodations, would make it a critically useful ship for disaster response/assistance for allied planets. Also, given it's huge size (a heavy cruiser hull), 'showing the flag' in such cases in the best possible way.

Federation CVC

In peacetime, it would commonly have been equipped with mech-links for workboats purchased from the Gorn or Kzinti (or even Orions or Jindarians - workboats not natively produced within the Federation, but useful for disaster response/humanitarian missions)

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, November 14, 2009 - 03:19 pm: Edit

Somebody asked for CA variants, but it wasn't me and I think there are plenty of them already. Anything else is going to be an unbuilt design proposal and will provoke a horde of bitching and moaning from the "I hate conjecturals" crowd.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Saturday, November 14, 2009 - 03:46 pm: Edit

I was thinking this would work more along the lines of a multi-purpose hull rather than just a widely built CA variant. IE., one built so the fleet has an easy conversion to another CVS/CVB if it needs it in wartime, but funded by selling it to the public as a emergency response/disaster assistance design.

The resulting SSD would work well for that - as a CVS/CVB stand-in during wartime, it carries the same fighter wing (being able to fit the larger F-15s), and it would also work well for troop insertions in heavily contested areas...as well, indeed, as being a very good 'planetary disaster' response ship.

By Sean O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Saturday, November 14, 2009 - 05:13 pm: Edit

The Feds already have the disaster-management destroyer that was published in Cap Log... and those weren't overworked according to the history, mostly supporting colonial development.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Saturday, November 14, 2009 - 11:34 pm: Edit

Yes, but why use just a disaster-management destroyer, when you could have a disaster-management CRUISER?

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Saturday, November 14, 2009 - 11:47 pm: Edit

The FEMA mission has never really been explored... just referred to when the FEM destroyer variant was published.

I wonder if the Federation might not have built a "Disaster Fleet Flag ship" to lead the "Federation Emergency Management Agency" (FEMA by anyonther name...)

Sounds like a bureaucratic empire just waiting to be built by some aggressive and egomaniacal bureaucrat...

By Sean O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Sunday, November 15, 2009 - 12:46 am: Edit

Xander, probably because the destroyers were adequate to the job?

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Sunday, November 15, 2009 - 01:43 pm: Edit

Quote:

Xander, probably because the destroyers were adequate to the job



For truly epic planetary-scale disasters (major asteroid strike, widespread pandemic, major environmental collapse, etc), a single destroyer will not cut it. A small fleet of ships would be needed to support this. Largely I would expect these to be naval auxiliaries of various types...F-HLs and F-HSs in volume, I imagine, as well as regular cargo ships for freight and any commando ship in the area.

The cruiser design proposed above is both a cruiser (higher command rating than a destroyer outright), and has a flag bridge to expand this, which would be CRITICAL in organizing and directing a fleet of this magnitude for LARGE scale disasters.

A fleet of well-meaning ships showing up in planetary orbit is nice and all, but without flagships to help provide order to an effort of such a scale, more harm than good would be accomplished.

Heck, even in wartime - imagine the Romulan attack on Rigel IV. A partially devastated Federation homeworld - some major cities in ruins, certainly widespread food distribution channels damaged or destroyed, water purification plants, hospitals, power plants, etc destroyed. A HUGE fleet would need to be called into that system to support the repair efforts, and a cruiser-hull support platform would be able to respond rapidly enough to be on-scene to organize the early relief efforts and provide emergency control of the situation. Certainly, for a disaster of this scale, mobile bases would quickly be put into orbit to start assuming control of the long-term recovery effort, and even before then naval auxiliaries would probably start assuming leadership of the emergency response/support fleet. However, the CVC would be there first, and provide the urgently needed initial support and leadership.

(And, heck, when NOT needed for such a mission...it's a HECK of a commando ship...so it's win-win for the fleet.)

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, November 15, 2009 - 02:15 pm: Edit

I thought the disaster response destroyers were just first responders, and that auxiliaries and regular warships (maybe even tugs) would be called up as needed. For a homeworld, all these things are nearby (within the F&E hex).

The bigger the world the greater the self support it has for disaster recovery (including in-system colonies and bases). Remus was probably the worst planetary disaster (or one of very few so great short of a star going nova... oh wait, yeah, no, I mean... in the SFU) and ships from all around certainly showed up. Such disasters seem reasonably rare.

What is probably more common is colonies being hit somehow. They lack the infrastructure and protections that major worlds have. So a Disaster response DD can bring what is needed in most cases. If it's not enough, it buys time for the auxiliaries to arrive. If that isn’t enough, other warships and police can assist with a variety of helpful facilities.

We sent a carrier to help with the disaster recovery in SE Asia after the tsunami a few years back. It wasn’t in any way a specialized disaster recovery ship but had many facilities that help greatly with the effort. I think what a disaster recovery destroyer brings most is the trained disaster recovery crew (and command facilities for disaster management) that can manage a large disaster. With that in place, any warship contributes almost as well as anything else.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Sunday, November 15, 2009 - 02:31 pm: Edit

Quote:

I thought the disaster response destroyers were just first responders



Naturally, and for major disasters of primary systems, that's absolutely what this would be. Just a "first responder" - but, more specifically (given the flag bridge), the first responder to provide order and organize the other first responders, too.

Quote:

We sent a carrier to help with the disaster recovery in SE Asia after the tsunami a few years back. It wasn’t in any way a specialized disaster recovery ship but had many facilities that help greatly with the effort.



Indeed, and that's exactly why I suggested this design - we sent a carrier. Not a cruiser, not a destroyer, definitely not a frigate. An entire CARRIER - the biggest thing we have. And we've also used the Wasp-class LHDs for hurricane relief relatively often (the built-in hospital with 600 beds and 6 operating rooms certainly being a major factor for the Wasp's usage in this role). A hurricane hit on a third-world country would be very like a major asteroid strike on a colony world. And, heck, it's not like there WON'T be hurricanes, too, on planets settled by humans; they somewhat come with the biosphere we find "habitable".

Anyway - that's very much what this is intended to be - a very heavy ship used for significant (IE., small number of millions of people) assistance. As you say, for MAJOR worlds, only as a stopgap - there is enough nearby to provide the long-term assistance needed. For large colony worlds, moreso. Or, indeed, major inhabited worlds within the Federation that have refused membership for one reason or another - so would lack the infrastructure of the core worlds...or may even lack space travel itself other than the invention of their own warp drive. So the Federation may have a vested interest in aiding such worlds with an overwhelming show of good will and the capabilities for support you get by becoming a Federation member. (Likely the realpolitik reason we actually send carriers TODAY to aid third-world nations we aren't strong allies with)

Anyway - as a cruiser, it's fast; and as a cruiser with a flag bridge (F&E command rating '9'), it can lead a huge fleet. So it provides the critical day-0 response to a crisis, organizing the initial ships that respond to the disaster until more long-term assistance can be provided.

And, as you note, in the case of more remote colony worlds that LACK the nearby support...well, this provides heavier aid/support than a (traditionally overworked/stretched) destroyer hull would.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Sunday, November 15, 2009 - 02:34 pm: Edit

...at least, the above argument would sell another CA hull to the politicians/civilians. And while it certainly DOES all those things above...it's also the best commando ship in the fleet, when needed for that mission. And if a CVS/CVB is lost in combat...it can be easily turned back into one of those (actually, no conversion is needed if you can live without heavy weapons, just fly off the shuttle squadron and land a fighter squadron after finishing filling out the rest of the flight deck with ready racks).

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, November 15, 2009 - 03:18 pm: Edit

I'd suggest that the CLG is a really good commando ship since it can land. It's practically and instant ground base.

The other thing is, no one knows where the disaster will occure. It is very unlikely that any disaster respnse ship could provide day 0 response time unless the day is measured from when the ship arrived. Since a large ship costs more there would be fewer of them and thus would take longer for one to reach a random disaster. With a DD base hull, you can build more and get critial needs met much earlier.

By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Sunday, November 15, 2009 - 03:23 pm: Edit

The proposed ship is basically the same ship I proposed in:

Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board: New Ships: R0.0: PROPOSALS FOR NEW CLASSES: Ground Assault Carriers

The response I received from SVC via e-mail:

Quote:

John, nice try but....

1. We've got submissions just like it for every carrier in the game.

2. Nobody thinks that the navy would give up a carrier for this.

3. There are only a limited number of cases in which you could use this.

4. Existing ships (or combinations of existing ships) can do exactly the same thing without major conversions, and then sent back to their other duties.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Sunday, November 15, 2009 - 05:39 pm: Edit

The argument against using regular carrier hulls will not be easy to defeat... but it should be pointed out that the next logical step in FEMA ships is not necessarily a CA variant.

There isn'tmuch point in developing a OCL/old light cruiser FEMA variant... there isnt really much room over what the DD/FEM has available for the OCL/FEM to improve.

I wonder if the Mike West light cruiser hull that was published back in an older captains log (#19, rule number R2.218A) (see page #85 for ship description) might not have been converted into a FEM command ship?

it had a similarly sized saucer to the vanilla destroyer, but it had 2 x 10 point warp engines (and IIRC) no secondary hull.

if a prototype light cruiser had been built, but then lost the contract for the light cruiser role to the OCL, then rather than scrapping the single (or no more than 2 or 3) hull(s) they could have been converted into FEMa ships.

such would address 3 issues:

1. the resulting ship would clearly be better than the DD/FEM design, but still less capable than any CA variant.

2. reinforcce the existing star fleet history that stated why the OCL won the contract for production during the year 130s period, but explained why it was that the "new design" light cruiser wasnt selected for production (the 10 point engines instead of using the 15 pointer werp necelles that the DD and CA classes had).

and ,
3. Limited the cruiser FEMA ship to no less than 1 unit and no more than 3 (ever).

of course, that might also mean that the 1, 2 or 3 mike west designed light cruisers were still in the mothball reserve fleet at the start of the general war...

now just what kind of FEMA ship one could build on the failed light cruiser design, now that would be a different discussion.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Monday, November 16, 2009 - 01:30 am: Edit

Quote:

The proposed ship is basically the same ship I proposed in:



Ehhh...I dunno. It has a fairly major difference in that NONE of the fighter space is converted. IE., the CVC I proposed is only 8 ready racks away from being an interdiction-version of a CVS/CVB...it has all the shuttle boxes already present and unmodified (I guess you could think of it as a CVS that had the ready racks removed to make room for GAS or HTS loading ramps - shuttle space is identical, though)

This is really it's selling point to the fleet, too. While its ostensible role is commando delivery/emergency response...it's an immediate conversion (IE., a day, tops, at a starbase) away from a CVS/CVB stand-in.

Quote:

The argument against using regular carrier hulls will not be easy to defeat... but it should be pointed out that the next logical step in FEMA ships is not necessarily a CA variant.



I considered this. However, I believe I can defeat the arguments against using the CVS/CVB *itself* rather than this design. As follows:

- If the primary purpose is commando/emergency response...the shuttles are already there, and fighter ready racks already removed. That saves...say, a day, in responding to the emergency vs making that change to a regular carrier.

- The presence of barracks (intentionally designed for higher occupancy than regular hull space) allows for greater concentration of out-patient care from the medical facilities...and overall higher density of human/alien occupation.

- The (VASTLY!) increased number of transporters *substantially* increases the ability to move people out of a disaster zone. THIS SHOULD NOT BE UNDERRATED. While nobody would want to operate transporters 24/7 for extended periods of time, 10 pads operating in emergency mode can move a LOT of people off-planet and onto waiting transport ships or auxiliaries nearby.

- Again, the cruiser-size hull (8 command points) and flag bridge (+1 command points) cannot be undersold. This allows very TIGHT co-ordination of quite a bit larger fleet than smaller craft can manage. An important factor in major planetary catastrophes.

By Terence Sean Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Monday, November 16, 2009 - 03:23 am: Edit

Quote:

The cruiser design proposed above is both a cruiser (higher command rating than a destroyer outright), and has a flag bridge to expand this, which would be CRITICAL in organizing and directing a fleet of this magnitude for LARGE scale disasters.



Disagree, the background to the FEMA destroyers made it clear that they had civilian staff and facilities to coordinate the response to the disaster. They were not first responders, either. The "first responder" to a disaster of that kind would be whichever ship was closest, probably a POL but perhaps a cruiser or frigate. The FEMA destroyers were in there for the long haul. They were mostly used in practice to "support colonial development" and you don't develop a colony quickly.

Flag bridges are critical to controlling a large number of ships in combat. Disaster control is more about logistics.

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Monday, November 16, 2009 - 02:59 pm: Edit

I would have bet on a "Fema Pod" before another dedicated ship.

Manned by the friendly folks at the local capital (of the hex) planet in return for those great grant bucks...

By ROBERT l cALLAWAY (Callaway) on Monday, November 16, 2009 - 04:12 pm: Edit

Actually in R1 there is a proprsal for a FOL varients FLOA/C which would be better then a CA class hull.
An FL-OF hull would have far more cargo space could be modifity with faster engines and be able to support operation over a wider range. granted it would need a transports billing more refuges then a passager liners. capable to carry out more transporters ops, and shuttles plus e supplies so more repulcaters would be required

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, November 16, 2009 - 06:04 pm: Edit

A FEMA pod has been proposed and died a lonely death...

Faster engines for freighter variants (other than for military auxiliaries) are a late General War period improvement, IIRC... the FEMA ships existed prior to the General War (I forget how much earlier than the start of the General war) so the idea of combining faster freighters and the FEMA mission might be DOA... only the steves could tell us for sure...

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